Commissioners,

The public has a right to know why I ask you to join me tonight in rejecting this developer-inspired proposal for our county.

This commission has rights and duties. We have the right to reaffirm our original 2002 growth management plan, and we have the duty to reject the industry-driven substitute that is before us.

Many people believe that tonight's meeting is about a growth management plan for all the citizens of Alachua County, one created from years of public hearings. They believe this is the plan found in compliance with State laws. Instead, tonight we have a private lawyers' substitute plan - a plan arrived at in private rooms, where wealthy special interests are more comfortable than they are in the public forum.

It is our duty to inform the public that this substitute is not the original 2002 State-approved county growth management plan.

The public has the right to know that the Commission is under no legal obligation to accept this substitute. The public has the right to know that the original 2002 Alachua County growth management plan meets the highest standards of the State of Florida.

The public also has the right to know that the developer-inspired substitute plan before you tonight only pretends to manage new development. It should be called what it is -- a growth mis-management scheme -- one that forces over 200,000 citizens to pay ever-rising taxes to increase the wealth of the county's most fortunate few.

Developers' motives are forthright and clear: to subdivide or commercialize as much land as commissioners will allow; to get as much expanded infrastructure, subsidized by the taxpayers, as commissioners will allow; to elect those most likely to transfer public assets to their private use; and to use whatever legal and election tactics are necessary to accomplish the job.

Even though there was no public mandate to do so, Commissioners Rodney Long, Cynthia Chestnut and Lee Pinkoson directed county staff to "mediate" (privately) with those who challenged our 2002 growth management plan. I am sure that my colleagues did not fully anticipate what has resulted - a downgrade of important growth management elements to boost the fortunes of development interests.

That is the substitute product before you tonight: it is not a plan to advantage the public--it is a plan to advantage an industry.

The downgrade deals were not open to public participation. Only those few accepted by the mediator were allowed to sit at the table and to speak for the public's interests. Professional county planners, who worked with the public for years to develop the State-approved plan, were directed by Commissioners Long, Chestnut and Pinkoson to "knuckle down" to the pressure from private political influences and their lawyers.

The public knows little about these events.

We do know that in Florida, every attempt to plan a community is challenged by land development interests. But times have changed, and citizens have had enough. The public has lost trust in us because they know all too well that the cost of doing business in Alachua County is just the price of a small investment in a few commissioners. But no commission has to cater to these deals. The best communities won't even consider them.

Commissioners, no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to put a pretty face on this growth mismanagement deal. Tonight, I ask you: do not abandon our sworn duty to serve the public. Do not abandon the 2002 plan, just to do a political favor. At least three of us have an entirely lawful, once-in-a-decade opportunity to restore public trust-by rejecting the private deals, and supporting growth management for all our citizens.

We can instead do the right thing by voting to support the adopted 2002 growth management plan, already found by the State to be in compliance with State laws. I ask you to do just that.

Mr. Chairman, I move a substitute motion to reaffirm the adopted 2002 growth management plan.

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